


Catch Up, Skywalker

by AceOfSpace



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: A College AU with a Twist, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, I'm also the poster child for Platonic Anisabe, In which all of the characters are very smart but also unbelievable dorks, Junior Professors AU, Padme and Sabe are the best friends in the entire galaxy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 04:56:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8432674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceOfSpace/pseuds/AceOfSpace
Summary: In which Sabé decides to set up her recently-single best friend with a guy they used to know. She's not sure if she regrets it yet or not.-hiatus-





	

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was their first Halloween with Anakin in the picture.

Not much was different about Halloween this year.

Padmé and Sabé were holding the party in their apartment, continuing on with a tradition that they’d followed for the last six years. It was hosted on a Saturday night, beginning at seven o’clock and presumably going on until the early hours of the morning. They had spent the bulk of the day finalising the touches on picturesque social media-inspired decor, baking and decorating chocolate cake pops, and shopping for liquor, among other things. For the two of them, putting parties together had become less of a stressful occurrence and more of a joy, for they’d learned to work together and solve problems without arguing a long time ago. After having known each other for more than half of their lives, they had become the textbook definition of perfect best friends. Despite having different career paths, with Sabé in physiology and Padmé in political sciences, they managed to be more in sync with each other than ever. Over time, they had come to be more like sisters, or two versions of the same person, like one woman and her mirror image. They shared everything from textbooks to tank tops to occasionally toothbrushes, and they were inseparable.  
With that in mind, it lead Sabé to dwell on one thing in particular. There was nothing to worry about when it came to the party, knowing that every task would be executed flawlessly. Her concern was regarding her best friend more than anything else.

It was their first Halloween with Anakin in the picture.

She had met him through a chance encounter. He had signed up for personal training at the gym on the university campus where they all worked. Being five years her junior, Sabé had naturally assumed that he was an undergrad, or perhaps a postgraduate student at most. He quickly told her that she was misinformed, and that was when her memory jolted. He was Anakin Skywalker. He was in papers and news broadcasts alike at age nine, when he was discovered by Dr Qui-Gon Jinn and branded as one of the brightest young minds of the twenty-first century. He was the boy who bypassed five years of schooling with the flick of a hand and subsequently accelerated even through college. He was awarded a PhD around the same time of his first legal drink, and had hoards of schools begging and bribing him to take his research there. Now at twenty-four, he was set to revolutionise the creation of prosthetic limbs. In the academic world, he was quite the big deal.

He was also once a gawky fourteen-year-old who, at an intercollegiate science fair, asked Padmé if she was an angel.

She remembered meeting him, internally questioning his choice of workout wear, and thinking of all the fun she could have while she pushed him to his physical limits. She also couldn’t help but think about how, now that ten years had passed, he would actually be age-appropriate for her recently-single best friend. It had been six months since Padmé and Rush Clovis had ended things, and Anakin seemed cute enough, as much as he seemed to be needing help in the wardrobe department. Still, she could always help him with that.

So she hinted that she and Padmé would be barhopping that weekend and suggested for him to meet them somewhere.

She didn’t expect anything to actually _happen._

Anakin and Padmé had been seeing each other casually for the last six weeks and weren’t yet ready to divulge much about their relationship to the public. As far as Sabé was aware, she was the only one who knew anything. As the party guests started flooding into the apartment, she found herself questioning more and more frequently if she’d be able to keep the situation secret, and if she could come up with decent excuses as to why her best friend looked so happy. Of course, eventually, she’d end up intoxicated, and she wondered if that would get the better of her. Still, she thought to herself, it was best to be optimistic. Despite the fact that she’d spilt secrets about Padmé mere minutes after being told them, there were other things which she’d kept to herself since they were in middle school. 

It was eight o’clock and Sabé was in the kitchen, half watching the party unfold before her and half rearranging the fridge to fit in more glass bottles and six-packs of beer. She looked at the refrigerator shelves with mild frustration, thinking of how she and her roommate should have invested in or borrowed a few portable coolers. Nonetheless, what was done was done, and she knew that she need to make do with the available space. Upon cramming everything her guests had brought alongside bulky milk cartons, containers of leftover homemade pizza, and egg cartons that absolutely could not be kept in the cupboard, Sabé was pleased. That was, of course, until she caught sight of all the fresh vegetables she’d haphazardly dumped on the kitchen counter. 

Her dark eyes flickered from the stacked produce to the complete lack of wriggle room in the fridge and she sighed.

She was going to have to make a salad, and in costume, as well. 

Then again, she wasn’t really in a costume per se. She was even wearing some of her regular clothes. However, the majority of her outfit belonged to her roommate. 

Sabé and Padmé had a long history of tricking their peers by doing each other’s hair and borrowing each other’s identities. It was a trick they hadn’t attempted in a couple of years, but a playful ode to their adolescent days, when Sabé would take her best friend’s place in gym class to play touch football, leaving Padmé to discuss the works of Shakespeare for the second time in a week.

Her Halloween costume was neither gory nor elaborate, but instead a demonstration of stealth. Her deep brown tresses were twisted into updo that was so unquestionably Padmé, while her eye makeup was soft and her lips were the colour of dusty roses. Her delicate frame was shrouded in a pastel a-line dress of floral print, and a powder blue cardigan hugged her shoulders and accentuated the dip in her neckline. She was every bit her best friend in appearance from head to toe.

Of course, Padmé was involved in the disguise as well. Hard black eyeliner framed her chestnut eyes, and her waist-length curls had been ironed and slicked back into a low ponytail. Her dress of choice was one that Sabé had bought a few months prior, and was a standout fire engine red, falling loosely off the shoulder and hugging her svelte figure in all the right places. When the two had finished each other’s hair and makeup, they spent a considerable few minutes laughing together. They were as indistinguishable as ever, like carbon copies of each other.

She got a few calls of ‘Hello, Padmé!’ while she was slicing the salad ingredients. She was also met with a few questioning looks and remarks. Not everyone at the party was familiar with their little play, and it clearly showed in the form of their confused expressions. Naturally, as the minutes passed, people generally got the idea. It wasn’t that Sabé had forgone wearing a costume to the party, but that hers was simply a subtle one.

The funniest reactions were those which came from her newer friends, people she had come to meet in her life after college. They were people who hadn’t fully grasped the extent of her friendship with Padmé, and how they gave the phrase ‘two peas in a pod’ a new meaning. People arrived in an array of elaborate costumes, from zombies to vampires to satirical depictions of public figures, and in comparison, Sabé looked plain. It certainly looked as if she’d forgotten the occasion. She smirked as she spotted her guests’ faces flushing with embarrassment, likely wondering if they’d dressed up by accident. After a bit of explaining, such negativity quickly went away.

There was one guest, however, whose arrival had left _her_ red-faced.

She was met with a voice she barely recognised, and the unfamiliar feeling of large arms encircling her waist.

“Hey, I thought you said you’d have a costume,” he all but purred into her ear, “I was looking forward to it.”

Sabé became hyper-aware of the fact that she was holding a knife, and momentarily considered wielding it as a weapon. However, she knew that deep down, she was in the company of friends. It was best to drop it. Nobody was going to pick her up or take her that much by surprise. Her friends knew better than to sneak up on her. Still, this person didn’t let go. If anything, he was being strangely clingy, pulling her away from the benchtop on which she was still trying to work, and against his own body. She glanced down towards her waist, and the black sleeves that were so possessively wrapped around it. She had an inkling as to who had greeted her; someone who had never been victim to her and Padmé’s game of disguise. Given the circumstances, she was going to let the touchy-feely behaviour slide, albeit just this once.

Her head turned as she prepared to say hello, but instead, he kissed her, and she shrieked. Her entire being froze as his lips met hers and her dark eyes widened to the size of saucers. She pulled away and the hold around her waist disappeared just as quickly. She wiped her mouth against the back of her hand almost immediately. Without saying a word, she briefly scoped her surroundings to make sure that nobody around them had seen what had just happened. It was only a second or two, but that didn’t change the fact that Sabé didn’t want to relive it.

“ _Anakin!_ ” 

He looked at her with his blue eyes narrowed, appearing confused at the very least, if not hurt.

“Padmé?” 

“Sabé,” she corrected through gritted teeth. An index finger was raised in protest, so as to make sure he didn’t venture closer again.

“ _Shit!_ ”

Realisation seemed to hit Anakin like a truck, and the expression on his face began to mirror hers in many ways. Coupled with the way he so swiftly flinched and went to tug at the collar of his shirt, it was safe to say that they were both just as embarrassed as each other.

She edged towards the counter top and discreetly motioned for him to follow, implying that it was important for her to finish preparing the food. Small but equal sized piles of diced vegetables accompanied a large mound of lettuce atop the chopping board, and it was less than a minute before Sabé had tossed them all into a large bowl and cast it all aside. Cleaning could come later, she figured. First, she had to address the situation at hand.

“I’m so sorry,” murmured a red-faced Anakin, not appearing game enough to make eye contact.

“It’s fine,” she dismissed the issue. “Padmé and I have-” she scrunched up her lips as she searched her brain for the right words- “It’s almost like an inside joke, I guess. We used to switch places with each other in high school all the time, kind of like twins. Everyone bought it. They still do.” Sabé found herself smiling at the thought, with fond memories of antics with her best friend appearing at the forefront of her mind.

She didn’t expect Anakin to understand, but if he was really serious about sticking around, he would in time.

“So where’s your costume, mister?” she asked smugly with her hands on her hips. 

Anakin was dressed from head to toe in black, and looking him up and down did little to none in terms of identifying a costume type. Was he a black hole? A witch’s cat minus the ears? Some kind of poetic satire about the state of the economy?

“I’m my evil twin,” he replied, shrugging as if his Halloween ‘costume’ came with a built-in neon sign.

Sabé couldn’t help but bare her teeth in a grin. “But I thought you were the evil twin.”

“Very funny.”

“You came straight from work, didn’t you?”

Anakin’s sheepish grin was enough of a response for her to know the truth. He had to have gotten his professional reputation from somewhere. It wouldn’t have surprised her if he lived in his office on campus.

She felt markedly more relaxed than she did a minute ago, and for that she was glad. A little hiccup wasn’t going to get in the way of another stellar Halloween party, and Padmé didn’t have to know about any of it. Of course, if Anakin managed to pull a ridiculous stunt like that with anyone else, Sabé was going to make sure that he had hell to pay, but that was something he didn’t need to know either.

A few moments of silence passed, and the two exchanged awkward thin smiles.

“Padmé’s on the balcony,” she informed him, cocking her head towards the glass sliding doors across the room, “but she’s wearing my clothes. Try not to let that put you off.” A laugh escaped her lips and she ventured towards the fridge, from which she took two bottles of beer and passed one to Anakin. Given the events of the last couple of minutes, he likely needed a little something to relax him. Sabé knew that she sure did.

“Thanks,” he told her sincerely before making his way out of the room.

“No problem,” she replied with a thin smile. “Oh, and Anakin?”

He turned to face her once more, his brow raised.

“I never want to hear your bedroom voice again,” teased Sabé, referring to the husky tone of voice he used to greet her.

She could almost see the mischief bloom in his eyes, and it didn’t take long at all for Anakin to make his own remark.

“I know, I know,” he insisted, “Only in your dreams.”

Sabé could only laugh and shake her head in response. “I’m gonna make you pay for that later, you know that? Just go,” she urged him, subtly directing him to the balcony once more, “She’s practically dying to see you.” Her back turned momentarily and she picked up the salad she’d prepared earlier. “My salad and I will be fine, although I might need therapy.” She paused. “Just kidding.”

Padmé returned from outside and her entire demeanour changed once she spotted Anakin in the kitchen. She all but ran to him in Sabé’s heels and animatedly threw her arms around his neck to pull him close. 

There were no strangers or nosy acquaintances to ask questions, so Sabé caught sight of them kissing for a few seconds before averting her gaze. She was almost certain that she heard her best friend murmur ‘it’s me; it’s just a costume, I promise.’ It warmed her heart to hear Padmé speak to him about how happy she was, and how she’d been looking forward to telling Anakin about all of their Halloween and party traditions. It made her feel especially at ease when Padmé took a second to part from her boyfriend and tell Sabé that she wouldn’t go into hiding with him all night. After all, it was their party, and they were two halves of the best pair of friends in the world. Padmé commented on the vibrancy of the makeshift salad and promised to catch up with her soon before heading to the living room, her grip on Anakin’s hand slipping as more guests entered her line of sight.

Sabé took a swig of her beer and trailed behind them, knowing that she was overdue to talk with Dormé about her elaborate Halloween costume. She felt like she could relax when it came to Padmé. She never had any reason to not trust her. Their party would go down once again without a hitch, and at least for tonight, she felt no reason to worry.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope to add more snippets of their adventures at a later date. Not sure if they'll be chronological or not, but we'll see!


End file.
